Jack London
Words and Music by Chris Kennedy


An influence in my life ... and one of the true American heroes.


By the time that you were twenty
You had jobs a plenty
Like hauling nets and slingin' coal
And growing old in the factory

Slaving to stay poor
Hitting the prison floor
You swore that words would be your trade
Your ticket to be free

Jack London gone at forty
After 50 books and living enough
For three men twice your age
Jack London I've read your stories
By the firelight in Alaska
I was glued to every page

Ninety-eight was the year to move on
To the gold rush in the Yukon
Many men died with their dreams ablaze
In the snow upon those hills

Ah, but your tales resurrect them
I swear that I've met them
In the August heat, 'To Build a Fire'
Still gives me a chill

Jack London gone at forty
After 50 books and living enough
For three men twice your age
Jack London I've read your stories
By the firelight in Alaska
I was glued to every page

I'll write a thousand words a day
No matter what, is what you'd say
Even through those years
On the road and o'er the sea

With your sailing ships and your politics
And those farm and ranch experiments
Well your writing was the fuel behind
A hundred other dreams

But there were heartstrings frayed and torn
And old John Barleycorn
And your holy Eden burned one night somehow
Well there was darkness to the fame
Of people clinging to your name
To tangle you and wrangle you
Like a bronco to the ground

Now your name is chisled there
On the monuments in the city squares
A socialist at heart
You might hate that kind of thing

Ah but you really can't blame us
'Cause the twentieth century's tamed us
Your words call to the wild in me
So tonight to you I sing

Jack London gone at forty
After 50 books and living enough
For three men twice your age
Jack London I've read your stories
By the firelight in Alaska
I was glued to every page

Jack London gone at forty
After 50 books and living enough
For three men twice your age
Jack London I've read your stories
By the firelight in Alaska
I was glued to every page

©Blue Vignette Publishing, ASCAP